On March 1, 1953, after an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin did not emerge from his room the next day, having probably suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body.Although his guards thought that it was odd for him not to rise at his usual time, they were under orders not to disturb him. He was not discovered until that evening. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74, and was buried on March 9.